This last week I went to two shows, my first two of the year. I don’t think I could tell you the last time I went that many months without seeing live music. On top of having just loved going to shows since I was a teenager and thus attending as many as possible for a long time, from age 17 until last year I was also an active performing musician and show promoter at various DIY venues. The first show of the two was a DIY show in San Jose, and while I wish I could say I felt exalted upon entering the venue to a blast of sound and crowd of people, my initial reaction was light annoyance as I remembered the difficulties that come with this type of venue; in this case, a space not designed for live music that did not have a raised stage or professional sound system. The energy in the crowd, however, was nothing short of ecstatic. In addition to Star 99 (San Jose locals currently on a winning streak) and Sunday Cruise, who were on tour together at the time, were Shinobu, a San Jose-based emo-indie-punk band that was active in the 2000’s and early 2010’s before disbanding in 2015, and Ging Nang Boyz, a Japan-based band that has also been active since the 2000’s and who Shinobu managed to get to come to the U.S. to do this reunion tour with them. My partner and I, both on the shorter end of 5 feet tall, looked for a spot where we could see at least some of who was playing and settled in for the first set of the night. When we arrived Sunday Cruise was a couple songs into their set it seemed, and once I accepted that I wasn’t going to actually see much of anything I remembered part of what I’ve always loved about this type of show. I had not heard of this band before outside of knowing they were touring with my friends and hadn’t listened to them before the show and I instantly loved their sound which was a mix of indie rock and elements I can only describe as No Doubt-esque and could just feel how excited they were to be playing. Having just written my piece about a disappointing show experience where I felt the musicians played perfectly but performed poorly, this got me in the mood. I forgot how fun it can be to see a band you’ve never heard of play in a hot, crowded room.

This isn’t a show review. I don’t know why I feel the need to clarify that but it isn’t; it’s more a show-appreciation than anything. Something that struck me during Sunday Cruise’s set was that this huge crowd of people, most of whom came to see Shinobu, Ging Nang Boyz, or Star 99, crowded in and gave this band they had likely never heard of their full attention. Of course there were people in the back talking but not in a way that felt disrespectful of the band playing, a problem I’ve been having at shows lately as a lot of people seem to have never learned basic concert etiquette. Their set ended and the crowd spread out as folks went to buy merch or use the bathroom or smoke before Star 99 went on. I fucking love Star 99 and their new album (EP?) Gaman is already one of my favorite releases of the year, so despite them actually being the last band I had seen at the end of 2024 I was stoked to watch (or listen) to them play the new songs now that I knew them. Shinobu I had gotten to see several times around 2012-2013 and had split while I was living in New York so it was very special to get to see them again after so long and to see them play some songs from 10 Thermidor which had come out also while I was on the East Coast. People went WILD. I honestly couldn’t see a thing apart from the occasional glimpse of Mike Huguenor’s face but I didn’t need to because the crowd was plenty entertaining. Everyone was shouting along, a mosh pit opened, someone crowd surfed, it was incredible. Regrettably I didn’t stay for all of Ging Nang Boyz’s set due to being a working stiff but we watched the first few songs of their set and it was amazing. Despite not being able to understand most of their lyrics since they’re sung in Japanese I could feel the emotion of the songs through the presence of the singer, whose frontman game struck me even with my limited view of him, and the passionate mastery of the whole band. The next day I felt energized in a way I hadn’t in a while, despite also being tired from getting very little sleep before having to get up and commute to work. I forgot about that part of live music, how being in that space with community sharing this experience of artistic expression is exhilarating even when it’s physically exhausting. It made me miss performing with my band Practicing Sincerity, who played our last show last summer. I’ve been loosely working on more music but I don’t have anything ready to play for people yet.

From the age of 17 when I started playing shows until last year I had played in front of people pretty consistently, with the biggest gap being the year I moved to New York and only played one show that hardly feels like it even counts (my friend had to back out of a show so he offered me his set and I scrapped together some old material just to take the opportunity; three people came). Taking a break from performing was a very intentional choice I made when I decided to stop the band, but honestly it’s been hard. It was an important outlet for me through many seasons of difficult times and a constant in my often chaotic life. Practicing Sincerity in particular was deeply formative for me, maybe I’ll write a proper retrospective on it for this blog at some point, but it was the first time I wrote songs that were explicitly about my life and my feelings. I was in a period of my life when I was struggling with severe depression and self-loathing, and I was able to channel those feelings into songs about grief in the face of death and relationships ending, about romantic love and friendship and trying to be better and sometimes failing. Playing these songs for people, strumming my guitar turned up loud and shouting lyrics into a microphone while my friends backed me up on guitar, bass, and drums was a magical experience; a moment when the walls I normally had up around myself would fall and I would give my whole self to the music and to the audience. Multiple people who knew me well told me they felt like they only got to see me fully when I played, like I was letting them into a part of myself that I couldn’t outside of that experience. By the end of things last year that had changed to some degree, but I do believe there is a part of myself I can only express in music and in performance, and so with whatever I do next I want to be very intentional about it and make sure it feels true to who I am now, not who I was years ago.

The second show I went to, that Friday, was Spellling in San Francisco. I had seen Spellling back in 2022 in Santa Cruz and it had been a very healing experience that I desperately needed at the time so I jumped at the opportunity to see her again playing a new album. The opener was a two-piece band called Whine playing instrumental heavy metal and we arrived in the middle of their set. It was loud as fuck. We went to the merch table to buy Spellling merch and had to yell just to barely be heard, then we found a spot in the crowd where we could see decently (god bless venues with raised stages). The guitarist had a Palestinian flag hanging from their amp, which was at least as tall as them and in the center of the stage between them and the drummer. It took me a song to get into the music but once I allowed myself to settle into the space and take a few hits from my pen I got immersed in the density of the sound, the raw power of it. It was a daring choice of opener for an audience of mostly indie rock listeners but it really paid off and set the perfect tone for the show, one of entrancement. After a break Spellling came on, and instantly she had the crowd’s full attention. I’ve seen a lot of musicians try to play themselves off as mystics of some sort (see: the freak folk scene of the 2000s and Alex Ebert) but Chrystia Cabal might be the first one I’ve seen genuinely give me that impression without seeming to try for it. She doesn’t come on stage wearing a big robe or face paint or anything like that, she comes out in low-rise pants and a mesh top with her face perfectly contoured. And she doesn’t lead the crowd in prayer or have them close their eyes in silence, her presence and her voice just transport you to this otherworldly space. Throughout the set she switches between playing synth and dancing while she sings, and in both states she is absolutely mesmerizing. Spellbound is the best word I’ve found to describe the feeling in the crowd, just a genuinely mystical, beautiful experience. 

Spellling has been on my mind a lot as I think about what music I want to make and what kind of performer I want to be. I find myself relating less and less to the nonchalance of much indie rock, which often lends itself to a kind of indifferent attitude even when the people playing it are passionate about it. I think there is a changing tide in music right now, where people are getting sick of ambivalence and leaning more into drama and genuine expressions of direct desires. I’ve seen multiple YouTube videos talking about this in conjunction with artists like Doechii and Tyler. The Creator but I think it’s also happening in rock music and across the arts. Especially now in the wake of emergent fascism and widespread hostility towards vulnerable people, people have big feelings and want big personalities, like the larger-than-life personas of figures like Chappell Roan. I don’t think you necessarily have to be extravagant and showy to accomplish this. Sometimes this can be done by a single person playing a single instrument or a frontperson who leans fully into stoicism. I know this is what I have been gravitating towards lately, and I want to find this in myself as I look for my next music project and work on new material. I want to find that larger-than-life part of myself and let it express itself, because sometimes that feels more human than singing about changing your bed sheets.